happy halloween 2007

The kids are asleep in a sugary coma. The baby has determined that Halloween is a great holiday. He rode around in the wagon during trick or treating eating lollipops. He never moved or tried to get out of the moving wagon as he is apt to do. I think he didn't want to break the sneaky sweet snack fest.

I want to be on record here....
I FINALLY picked a green for my bathroom. It really has been worth the hunt. It is restful green "Gentle Dill" by Martin Senour. I feel at peace when I look at it.
I painted the bathroom walls and liked it so much that i decided to make an accent wall at the top of my stairs with it. Of course I ran out. So tomorrow I will find more.

There is only ONE place in town that carries this green color. Of course it was like an Indiana Jones unlocking the crypt adventure for me to finally track down the holy grail of greens.

At this place, there lives a magical woman that people wait hours to consult with on paint colors. People walk in with a swatch of fabric, a chip of paint or an idea in their heads and she walks in front of the spectrum of colors pulling, cutting and pasting until she has a gorgeous collection of coordinating colors.

pictures to follow after I paint trim, ceiling, install new sink base (or someone I'm married to does that)
Fights have erupted if anyone attempts to cut in the line or butt in "can I just ask one question".....

two!

what ticks you off

so we talked about anger in our Sunday School class this week.
We started out by posing the question ...what makes us mad. Right away, people came up with numerous traffic or shopping check out scenerios that really steam them.
I sat quietly and listened thinking, hm this is strange, none of that really bugs me. I really am so calm and laid back. huh?
wait this isn't me....there's gotta be something.
Oh yeah there's those people that speed past my house while our family is in the front yard.
and what about these jokers that own a jewelery store and hire a truck to drive around with a billboard on the back to advertise.
And then there is more waste and polluters and litterers and child molesters and ....
wait....ah there we go. the rage is back. all better.

PLEASE DO NOT INTENTIONALLY....

There are a bunch of crazies that live in my neighborhood.

I have to tell you beforehand that I live in part of the 'hood where the drivers speed by...and one guy had the nerve to post this on our community message board......

Subject line: "PLEASE DO NOT INTENTIONALLY WALK INTO THE PATH OF MY MOVING VEHICLE.

> Last night about 8:50pm (dusk), I experienced an emergency and was transporting my daughter to the ER while talking with her physician (on bluetooth so both hands could be free to drive). Yes, I was exceeding 25 MPH (IT WAS AN EMERGENCY), but I was not going over 35 and was EXTREMELY watchful for other cars and (typical ly) children who dart into the street unexpectedly. However, I was not expecting an adult resident to place their live, the life of their pet, and the potential catastrophic impact to me and my family had I actually hit this person as they deliberately stepped from in front of a parked car DIRECTLY INTO THE PATH OF MY VEHICLE and STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!!! While I appreciate the fervor with which we all try to encourage each other to SLOW DOWN through the subdivision, it is UNACCEPTABLE for anyone to place themselves and the driver in peril by this reckless behavior. Yell from the sidewalk, wave your arms, ... whatever.... JUST DON'T DO THIS AGAIN, PLEASE! I am sending this message to the subdivision as an alert to ALL DRIVERS to be aware of this type behavior.

What a knuckle head. Suffice it to say, this started a flurry of back and forth posts. The majority of which said, "ahm let's see...
1) you were speeding through the neighborhood
2) talking on your cell phone
3) you had an emergency, but didn't call an ambulance.
4) thank God it wasn't my kid that intentionally placed himself in front of your speeding, distracted vehicle.

imagine a life

Imagine you are at work.
The boss tells you things are just too crazy, and there is no one else who can come in to cover the next shift. So you stay and work.
By the 15th hour, you start to get a little bleary eyed and cotton mouthed, but you are allowed to have the occasional break, snack or meal in the breakroom. You are permitted to use the toilet facilities, but it is only for a limited amount of time. Someone will usually come looking for you and leaving the floor will back up the work or cause an accident.
And since your workplace is a 24 hour operation like most newsrooms, hospitals or 7-11's are you still can't leave come the third shift.
And so it continues, you really should be represented by a workers' union for what you know is a clear violation of US legal code.
You work with the same handful of people and while they are a fine group of people, they get on your nerves. Afterall, you are around them all the time.
Day after day, night after night.
Oh and did I mention? -- they can't pay you.
Slave labor, you say. Although if you haven't caught on by now...
This is my life.
My workplace is my house.
I cannot leave.
When I was younger and covered more breaking news shorties from the field. I thought I'd pass out from the exhaustion. I operated on very little or no sleep and ate rice crackers for meals.
That is what the initial months with a newborn felt like.
I know the whole thing about the crashing airplane and how you are supposed to give yourself oxygen first before aiding those smaller or weaker than you.
My airplane has been losing altitude for about eight years now. I feel guilty and selfish when I feel like I have to get away, but I do.
An occasional girls night out should do, but I need it EVERYDAY.
I have heavy-duty guilt when I feel like I need to escape the people that I love the most.

baby at "school"

what's the point?

Talk about an oxymoron....I've just become the "room mom" for the baby's mother's morning out class.....or maybe that is just "moron", without the "oxy."
Now the child goes once a week for three hours. One would think the work it takes a room mom to do the things she has to do for the "CLASS" would in fact negate the whole point of the program.
So there I sat in the parents' meeting before "school" started. When the teacher asked for a volunteer to be room mom, she looked sqare at me and my friend across the room (since we both have had children survive the program before).
I extended my arm to volunteer my sweet friend and the teacher thanked us both for volunteering.
So now begins the planning and begging for birthday presents for both teachers(because of course neither has a summer birthday), Christmas gifts, teacher appreciation gifts, teachers' luncheon and end of year gifts and luncheons, have i mentioned the gifts and luncheons?
I'm really not good at this. Remember I am a Kappa mom.

I love the internet, really I do.

Here is the amazing thing. I have a bed with a matelasse cover on it. When I bought it I must have been cheap because I didn't spend the extra dough and get the shams. I think it is because I come from a world where bed shams weren't part of my reality.

Anyway....my bed never looked made, even when I attempted to make it.

Trouble is I have no idea where I bought it. So yesterday I looked at the tag and googled Columbine Cody matelasse cover and lo and behold page after page of just what I was looking for.
gotta run....kids begging for their own computer time......ugh

smile

A funny thing happens when I see a picture of myself, I am shocked and dismayed at how i look....fat, frumpy, bad skin, no makeup. (did you ever wonder why I blurred my blogger picture?)
Anyway, I take this picture, stick it in a box and five years later, pull it out think, "Whoa, did I ever look good!!"
So it is that time of year again, when the professional photographer comes to the school. Year after year, I've seen great shots of families sitting ever so casually on stones in the woods wearing identical khaki pants, freshly pressed white button down shirts, and barefoot.
Because put-together families in perfectville wear this uniform and walk through the woods without shoes on.
So year after year I think, perhaps, I'll lose a little weight first before I have someone take a full length shot of me, but it is when I look back at the old pictures that I realize this is as good as it is ever going to get.
So I've made our appointment and I search for clothes we can wear that are not too matchy matchy, but don't clash with each other. Something in black for me, perhaps.
The music teacher at the school has her family picture from last year hanging on the wall. She has three children, a husband and two dogs. All were in the picture, looking right at the camera smiling and looking fabulous. It was a feat on it's own, until she pointed out a small brown blob on the shoulder of one of the children. The hamster. Yes the hamster was also in the picture looking straight into the camera smiling. Miraculous. Little khaki pants and all.

boys, books and bathrooms

Pictures from Q's first day of school and the baby's first day of mother's morning out.

I just scraped wallpaper and it's sticky liner for the past hour. It is about as much as I can take at a time. The bathroom still gets too hot and tedious. I tried to trick my mind into taking the zen approach it all.... It is not about the destination; it is about the journey. It is not about the journey.

But really in this case it is all about the destination. I want my bathroom done. It is about picking a green. In the end, it will be the wrong green, but I will be tired of looking for the PERFECT green.

I've started in a book club. Our first meeting is next month, our book is Welcome to the World Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg. Any other suggestions are welcome.

Right now I'm reading Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen. Next I feel it is my duty as a member of this society to read Harry Potter, the first one, mind you. I also want to read Kite Runner. That should get me through Christmas, since I am not a fast reader and things like messy children and peeling bathrooms and doggie diarrhea seem to swallow up big chunks of time around here.

a bunch of crap

Here are two words that no one wants to start her day with....doggy diarrhea.
Ah yes, that is when you know you are going to earn your pay for the day, oh yes except for the fact that you don't get paid for this job.
At least it wasn't one of the kids right? Right, except that was the weekend.
I returned home from work Saturday night to find out that Q started throwing up. My hunka hunka said it was perhaps from the enormous amount of junk food they eat while I am not around. (how fair is that?)

Does anyone else feel some amount of karma come around that OJ was arrested about the time his stupid book is coming out endorsed by the even stupider Goldmans?

Gotta go, I am being beckoned....mamama mama mama mama mama mama.

These are the people that suck....tv execs that put all the great shows on Thursday night.

Two of my faves....The Office and Grey's Anatomy are on at the same time this season. I know Tivo....blah blah blah. But our satellite system only allows one channel at a time, so whatever you are watching is what you have to record. Which means rabbit ear antenae on the upstairs TV and commercials, ugh.

I know too that there are bigger problems in the world, but come on, people. What about Sunday? Monday?

greener than green

I've been "working" on my bathroom.The quest for the perfect green has reached a new level of insanity and obsession.

Believe it or not I narrowed down my search from 70 or so samples of green to finally decide on one. But when I bought a small sample of it....it was all wrong. So back to the color charts to start all over....I narrowed it down to two from Home Depot. And then my mind flashed back to a Pampered Chef party I attended last year. I asked the hostess to tell me what color she had painted her kitchen. She wrote it on a small sticky note and by some miracle I stored it into a three-ring binder I generously titled "HOME IMPROVEMENTS."

After much searching I finally found the color.

Then I read a column written by a woman in Florida and one click led to another and I found an article about her that sent me obsessing. The picture shows her and two of her kids at the kitchen table and what did I notice? The plate of homemade cookies on the table? the cute kids? No right there in front of me was THE green. I must have that green. (OK I did notice the cookies first....but then it was the green the green!)

And being the complete freaky stalker of the perfect green that I am, I emailed the woman. And she so kindly dug through her garage for the paint can.

So now I am up to four colors of the verde, my friend Heather gave me a sample of her green today that I must try.

Funny, that I really am about a month's worth of labor away from painting that tragic space. In fact I may decide to start another project first .... something small and doable.

pictures from a poopy pool party

Pinata time....
Baby wearing legs from the donkey (or was it a bull?) pinata

Q decided that he was going to decorate his own cake. So really how else would you expect it to look. After spending FIVE HOURS (I am not exaggerating this number), decorating a Blue's Clues cake for my first son. The $11 cakes at Publix started to taunt me every time I walked by them.

Now.....all I buy is the cakes from Costco. They are so moist and divine. I really do love them so....Chocolate with the vanilla cheesecake filling and the real cream cheese frosting. THE BEST. Of course they serve about 50 people, but my philosophy in life is you can never have enough pizza or cake.

the needs are great

Q went for his 5 year check up and the doctor looked at me and said, "You've got him in speech therapy, right?"

I paused, pulled my eyelids back down into position and asked nonchalantly, "for what?"

Now there are certain questions you expect....
Does he sit in a booster?
Does he snore? (Q answered, "No I don't snore I just make noises when I sleep.")
Does he eat a variety of foods?

speech therapy? mild panic.....what have I been doing?

And then I realized when the nurse asked him if he could count to 100, that maybe I forgot to teach him that.

counting? mild panic....what have I been doing?

Then there is the baby that doesn't talk.
baby talking? mild panic....what have I been doing?

Then there is the eldest boy...a real smart cookie. I haven't been really supplying the endless books he needs to feed his never ending reading list.
I realized this last night when I looked at some of the books other kids have been reading.
Harry Potter? mild panic....what have I been doing?

I spoke at length today with a friend about the constant chaos into our lives...not just chaos but searching for and inviting chaos in for dinner and to become members of the family. Kind of like me, the three kids, dog, cat, stripping wallpaper and redoing the bathroom. I really don't need to be taking on any more projects around here, I can BARELY complete my own basic hygiene.

But we did decide that the mind does tend to wander while we complete the mundane tasks of the day to bigger and better and more, and so we start a new project and are never able to do it quite the way we should because we've got all the other things that have to be done before it.

And then we realize that our kids can't count or aren't reading and smack ourselves on the head and say...what have we been doing?

an ode to the party

Twas the night before the party
and as I stood on my stoop

not a swimmer was swimming
because someone pooped

The sign, it was hung
on the pool door with ease

"POOL CLOSED!" it read
Please...let us not
go to Chuck E Cheese!


There are a couple things you need to know about me....1) I am a germ-o-freak-nomaniac. 2) I do NOT like to host birthday parties.

But the middle son turning 5, and what I take upon myself as his lacking MIDDLE son status, prompted me to plan a pool party.

So of course, imagine my shock when upon returning from yet another trip to the store for supplies, my eldest boy says, "Mama, I've got some bad news."

Someone had deposited their fecal matter in the pool....hours and much scrambling later I find another pool.

Now we are in the middle of a drought here, strict watering bans, temperatures that have been above 90 since July, two weeks straight of 100+ degree temperatures.....and then today...the pool party....

130p starts the thunder and lightening. 2p the guests arrive. 220p starts the downpour. 4p the storm clears as the last guest leaves and the crumbs are swept away.

There should be no question why I hate to host birthday parties.

"Mama, is this a nap?" Q asks just moments ago.
I can understand his confusion.

Usually around 5 pm and stare at the clock and wonder how oh how I will live through the next three to 3.5 hours before they all are in bed.

So tonight I put them in bed at 7:00 pm. I gave myself the gift of an hour

"MAMA! IS THIS A NAP?!"

Ahm no, it is evening, and it is time to go to bed.

"Then why is the sky so blue?" he asks.

I launch into an explanation of the summer daylight and how the sun stays up longer.....

"No Mama, the sun doesn't stay up. The earth moves REMEMBER?!"

(sigh)....go to bed

Son #1 just came down to tell me he has a sore throat. Son #3 is in his crib reading his farm books, because I can hear him making animal noises.

today's horoscope

I sat in Chick-fil-A today after lunch and read the newspaper while the kids played in the playcenter.

I came across my horoscope.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Your children will get on your nerves, and they're just about to ruin their clothing.